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This talk which will be given by Joe Ringhausen, local orchard owner in Jersey County on October 20 at 7:30 p.m. at Farley Music Hall, 37 Mill Street, Elsah. A question-and-answer session follows the talk.

The Jerseyville orchards were purchased by the Ringhausen family in 1929. The orchard’s signature, award-winning, sweet cider is blended from equal amounts of tart apples, such as Jonathans, and sweet apples, like Fujis. The sweet cider is a mainstay at the Apple House from September until Christmas time, routinely selling out by the first of the year.

During the peak cider season, the orchard makes between 500 and 700 gallons per week, which they also sell to other stores, growers, and markets.

What is your favoite apple? How does it grow? What about heritage apples? Learn from Joe Ringhausen.

Free refreshments are available after the talk. With the theme of “apples,” refreshments will feature apples and things that go well with apples – unbeatable combinations. All are welcome to attend.

Sponsored by Liberty Bank of Godfrey, Illinois, this free lecture is part of the Hosmer Williams series given by the Historic Elsah Foundation. This year’s theme is “nature.”

William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson are two of the most famous authors of the nineteenth century writing about nature and what it meant for people of the nineteenth century. Heidi Snow will speak on Wordsworth and his love of the Lake District in the United Kingdom, and will speak about some present challenges. David Pfeifer will speak on Emerson and his love of Walden Woods in Concord, Massachusetts. Walden Woods is also facing challenges. Both speakers will present short passages from the authors and will show images that illustrate their thought on and love for nature.

May 19, 2016, 7:30 p.m. at Farley Music Hall, Elsah. This talk is part of the Hosmer-Williams Lecture Series, sponsored by Liberty Bank.

Friday, January 22, 2016, Farley’s Music Hall at 7:00 pm, Jeff Cowton, BME, will be our guest, mentor, and leader for an evening dedicated to ELSAH VILLAGE HISTORY. Cowton, this year’s Annenberg Scholar at Principia College, is Curator for the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, UK, and is ready to help us collect, organize, and preserve anecdotes and stories of Elsah. This is an evening about “all things Elsah,” and we hope you will be us. Principia students will be on hand to record these stories. Refreshments will be served.

Saturday, January 23, 2016, at Wanamaker Hall, Principia College, 7:30 pm. is another evening with Jeff Cowton, BME. He has led the way for the Trust to become the first to offer a modern apprenticeship in cultural heritage. The Volunteer/Internship Programme he developed has inspired hundreds of young people to follow in his footsteps. Learn more about his work here. Using William Wordsworth’s ideas and poetry, Cowton will persuade us to see, think, and to feel all that is about us and to advance the idea that local history is an important and sustainable activity. Jeff Cowton is the Annenberg Scholar at Principia College for 2016.

These lectures, free and open to the public, are presented in association with Historic Elsah Foundation and its Hosmer-Williams Lecture Series. Maps and directions are available at the Front Gate of Principia College, 1 Maybeck Place, Elsah, IL.